BSP stuns BJP with ruthless pursuit of power and blatant opportunism in Uttar Pradesh

BSP stuns BJP with ruthless pursuit of power and blatant opportunism in Uttar Pradesh

Six months ago the BJP used the BSP to checkmate its rivals in UP. Now it is confronted by its unlikely ally's remorseless pursuit of power and unabashed opportunism that defy conventional politics.

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SUBHASH MISHRA

Saba Naqvi Bhaumik

Farzand Ahmed

September 22, 1997

ISSUE DATE: September 22, 1997

UPDATED: May 14, 2013 17:17 IST

Not budging: Kalyan Singh was the real target of the row over the Speaker's post

It is surprising how the most anticipated of events leaves politicians in a state of utter bewilderment. It happened to the BJP last week. With less than a fortnight to go for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati to relinquish office in favour of a BJP nominee, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) started throwing tantrums.

BSP supremo Kanshi Ram put forward the demand that the BJP must relinquish the office of Speaker before its candidate Kalyan Singh could assume the chief minister's mantle. It left the BJP angry because its revolving door deal with the BSP on March 18 clearly stipulated that the chief ministership would rotate after six months and that the BJP as the largest single party in the Assembly would occupy the Speaker's chair.

Yet, there was an eerie inevitability to the crisis that almost left the grand experiment in "social engineering" in a shambles. It was conventional wisdom in political circles that the Kanshi Ram-Mayawati duo would not relinquish power without kicking and screaming.

A month earlier, Kanshi Ram had prepared the ground by describing the BJP as "vultures" and ruling out a national alliance with the party, for the moment at least. Then, as if on cue, he began raising newer and newer demands, each one calculated to reinforce his image as the master of brinkmanship, the artiste of doublespeak and the high priest of political opportunism.

It is an image that the Kanshi-Mayawati duo absolutely revels in. Where other politicians mask their deviousness and unprincipled deals in a cloak of ideological sophistry, the BSP sees itself above conventional accountability. Kanshi Ram teamed up with Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP) in 1993 to check the post-Ayodhya saffron "fascism" in Uttar Pradesh.

Within 18 months that coalition broke up in disarray amid vitriolic charges of SP workers leading an assault on Mayawati at the state guest house in Lucknow. Before Mulayam could blink, the BSP entered into an arrangement with the BJP, Mayawati cementing the deal by being photographed alongside a beaming party President L.K. Advani.

Four months later, on October 17, 1995, that unstable arrangement collapsed. "I am not surprised that the votaries of Brahminism have betrayed us," said an unfazed Kanshi Ram. In the BSP's scheme of things, there are no permanent friends or enemies. On June 23, 1996, Kanshi Ram sat next to former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao at a press conference in New Delhi to announce a BSP-Congress tie-up for the forthcoming assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.

The alliance was centred on one crucial principle: that Mayawati would be made the chief minister. Of course, the BSP-Congress alliance did not win the election. It secured a total of 100 seats in a House of 425, the BSP's share being 67.

Opportunism At WorkThe BSP's expedient tie-ups with various parties

Short Dalliance: Kanshi Ram teamed up with Mulayam in November 1993 to check the BJP; they parted ways within 18 months after much acrimony

Brief Honeymoon: Mayawati teamed up with the BJP to form the government in the state in June 1995; but the dubious alliance fell apart four months later

Electoral Adjustment: On June 23, 1996, BSP tied up with Congress for the state polls, projecting Mayawati as CM; post-poll Kanshi Ram turned to the BJP

But this did not prevent the party from persisting with its claim to the chief ministership in a hung Assembly. When Mulayam refused to relent, Kanshi Ram demanded that the Congress withdraw its support to the H.D. Deve Gowda government at the Centre as a measure of retribution.

At that juncture, new Congress President Sitaram Kesri was unwilling to do so but Kanshi Ram was not prepared to wait. In March, even as the United Front government was delighting in Governor Romesh Bhandari's constitutional subterfuge to keep the BJP out of power, Kanshi Ram struck a deal with Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani to put Mayawati in power for six months.

Only a month before, on February 13, Vajpayee had dismissed speculation of an alliance with the BSP: "All doors have been closed for the BSP after its tie-up with the Akali Dal (MANN) in Punjab." Eager to avoid another repeat of the 1995 experience, this time the BJP insisted on a written agreement, but even that has not deterred the BSP from throwing a spanner in the works and upping the ante.

"Political activity," wrote Kanshi Ram in his party organ in October 1993, "has become a game where rich men's notes manipulate poor men's votes. Now we must no longer beg for our rights but snatch them." The brazenness of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati does not stem from a failure to acknowledge conventional niceties. It is born of method and hard calculation.

Unlike other Dalit movements of the past Babasaheb Ambedkar is a good example that combined involvement in competitive politics with social activism, the BSP's world revolves around one goal: the relentless pursuit of political power, using short cuts wherever necessary.

For Kanshi Ram and Mayawati, the triumph of the Bahujan Samaj over the Manuwadi order will not come as a consequence of a gradual shift in social attitudes; it will be forced by the naked use of political power. For the duo, power is not the end. It is the means. Jiski laathi uski bhains (he who wields the stick, gets the buffalo).

Mayawati is quite forthright in espousing the BSP philosophy: "My single aim is to ensure that work meant for Dalits gets done. Everything else is towards that goal." The duo has a simple formula for reversing the "historical injustice done to our people". Control the bureaucracy, the levers of power and pass on the benefits to the Dalits, thereby building a vote bank that can be traded for yet more gains.

TRAIN TO DELHI: For the BSP wielding state power, controlling the bureaucracy and building up a substantial vote bank are far more important than social reforms

Mayawati did not blink while apportioning Rs 700 crore of the state's rural development budget for the Ambedkar Village Development Scheme which would benefit just 22 per cent of the population. Nor was she inhibited by simple economics when she forced a near-bankrupt State Electricity Board to spend over Rs 150 crore for the electrification of Ambedkar villages.

Mayawati doggedly pursued, what Giri Institute of Social and Development Studies Director G.P. Mishra calls the "Brahmo-Ambedkar approach" to create a psychological rather than an ideological impact on the state. The approach has started yielding handsome dividends. The BSP has come a long way since its days as the Dalit Soshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS-4) when it concentrated on building a network of those who benefited from the post-Independence reservation of government jobs for Scheduled Castes.

The reach among government servants has enabled the BSP to strike roots in all areas of Uttar Pradesh and enjoy a stable source of funding. At a time when national parties such as the Congress, the Left and the Janata Dal (JD) are in decline, the BSP has increased its share of votes in Uttar Pradesh from 11 per cent in 1993 to 20 per cent last year. In the event of a snap election, it is likely to go up further. Even Vajpayee concedes: "As things stand today, only the BSP has gained."

What is more, Kanshi Ram has conclusively demonstrated that the BSP's vote bank is not merely increasing but is eminently transferable. Mulayam benefited from this en masse transfer in 1993, as did the beleaguered Congress in 1996 when it increased its tally in the Assembly from 29 to 33.

The BJP got a taste of the delights of teaming up with the BSP in this year's Farrukhabad assembly by-election when it regained the seat with a sharply increased majority, thanks to the BSP support. In fact, it is the BSP's ability to transfer its vote at the snap of a finger to the ally of its choice that explains why national parties such as the Congress and the BJP are willing to stomach insults and woo Kanshi Ram.

For the BJP, a national alliance with the BSP may be good for the ideal of a Hindu society united in social harmony - what Murli Manohar Joshi calls "our effort to fix the post-Mandal fractured polity of India". However, it is secondary to the temptations of an electoral sweep in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Likewise, for Sitaram Kesri, who has shied away from abusing Kanshi Ram and Mayawati, the key to checking Vajpayee's return as prime minister is a deal with the BSP supremo. Even V.P. Singh's grand scheme of a popular front against the BJP in Uttar Pradesh envisages Kanshi Ram as a key player. "There are many who will be disappointed if this alliance does not break," admits Advani candidly.

"The BSP is a non-political force that hobnobs with communalists. They are opportunists."Amar Singh, Samajwadi Party

It is this smug realisation that encourages the Kanshi-Mayawati duo to be reckless and even outrageous. Kanshi Ram's demand to unilaterally alter the terms of the March 18 agreement with the BJP was partly brinkmanship. But it was triggered substantially by a desire to exploit apparent contradictions within the BJP.

There are some in the saffron camp who believe that the BJP vote has reached saturation point in Uttar Pradesh. It has remained more or less static in the 32-34 per cent range in the parliamentary and assembly elections held between 1991 and 1996.

This group, dominated in the main by upper castes like Lalji Tandon and Kalraj Mishra who lack a popular base, feel that the BJP can afford to lose some of its traditional supporters for the sake of an assured BSP support in each constituency. Consequently, they are impatient with former chief minister Kalyan Singh's bid to seek a wider constituency among the Backward Castes and the Jats of western Uttar Pradesh.

In the hard game of electoral politics, an alliance with the BSP is the easy option for the BJP even if it results in the demoralisation of the party's traditional supporters. Last week, Kalyan Singh tested the waters by offering to step down from the leadership if the party found his presence inconvenient. But with the solid support of at least 85 per cent of the BJP's 176 MLAs, the last thing the high command wanted was a public airing of private doubts.

In any case, the BJP was miffed over Kanshi Ram's hamhanded bid to create a misunderstanding between Vajpayee and Advani on the Speaker issue. Kalyan could also afford to call the BSP's bluff because he is aware
that the alliance is not a one way traffic. While national parties can
definitely benefit from the BSP in this era of unstable coalitions, the
BSP too needs allies for sustenance.

"Mayawati, having tasted blood, does not want to give up power and position so easily."K.N. Tripathi, UP Speaker (BJP)

Going it alone in the 1996 Lok Sabha election, the BSP managed only six seats out of 85 in Uttar Pradesh. This year, when it broke its alliance with the Akali Dal (Badal) during the assembly election in Punjab, it barely made a mark.

Likewise, its well publicised attempts to enter Bihar, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh on its own steam have come to nought. The BSP has a stable vote in its areas of strength, but this is inadequate to win it seats on its own. Just as others need the BSP, the BSP needs allies to realise its dream of wielding power. "The BSP leaders must realise that coalition means compromise and not surrender," says Kalyan Singh.

In Uttar Pradesh, what ultimately binds the BSP and BJP is a common fear of Mulayam. President's rule is seen as Mulayam's proxy rule. Mayawati and Kanshi Ram could not have forgotten the lessons from the previous round of governor raj. Bureaucrats and thana-level officers were transferred across the state at Mulayam's bidding.

Says a senior bureaucrat: "The Backward Castes have traditionally wielded the stick in Uttar Pradesh. And if there is governor's rule before elections, much of Mayawati's vote bank will not even be able to step out to vote."

If it is convergence of interests that dictates alliances, why have the other parties failed to get the BSP to conduct itself in more conventional terms? How do Advani and Vajpayee, who are otherwise sticklers for ideology, manage to look the other way as Kanshi Ram describes the party as a "poisonous cobra"? Why does the Congress tolerate being called the "B-team of Brahminism"? Why is it so indulgent of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati's vitriol against Mahatma Gandhi?

"The BSP and BJP have absolutely no principles and just want power at any cost."Tariq Anwar, Congress

To some extent, the answer is located in the liberal conscience. In the post-Mandal world of affirmative action, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati can get away by being outrageous and irresponsible because they claim to speak for a section of society that has seen its dignity repeatedly violated.

The BSP guilt trips the liberal intelligentsia into believing that universal principles and simple laws of political conduct are inapplicable to it because these norms are a function of centuries of Manuwadi conditioning. Even the media has acquiesced in Kanshi Ram's bullying tactics. When the BSP supremo assaulted cameramen and reporters in Delhi late last year, there were only murmurs of protest.

When Mayawati recently extracted Rs 30 lakh from the state exchequer for renovating a bungalow on Mall Avenue, Lucknow, where she will live after September 21, it was glossed over in embarrassment. The fact that a sum of Rs 70 lakh was earlier spent on it did not warrant the whole thing becoming a monumental scandal.

When out and out caste considerations dictated the transfer and posting of officials in Uttar Pradesh, there was only passing indignation. Kanshi Ram and Mayawati have successfully turned the world upside down. They have made their own laws.

It is this reluctance to play by the rules of coalition politics that has earned the BSP the reputation of being unreliable and irresponsible. Some deft backroom manoeuvres can perhaps keep the BJP-BSP alliance going for some time, but in the long term, the arrangement is bound to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.

But even if it survives the recent convulsions, a period of instability can safely be predicted for Uttar Pradesh. Should a BJP chief minister be sworn in on September 21, the Kanshi-Mayawati duo will play the role of spoilers. If the new man tries to break out of the BSP's clutches, Mayawati will break the government without any hesitation. Without power and influence - exercised directly or otherwise - the BSP duo is just not interested in the principle of fairness.

Call them unscrupulous, call them unethical and denounce them as unprincipled, but Kanshi Ram and Mayawati have never concealed their audacious opportunism from public gaze. "Once we get power," Kanshi Ram declared a few years ago, "we must not at any cost allow the Brahmin-Bania press, the Brahmins, or for that matter anyone else or their stooges to destroy Ambedkarisation."

It is a promise they have lived up to handsomely. Or, as the huge hoarding of a charging rhinoceros in Lucknow's Hazratganj crossing puts it evocatively: "We can't help if others look small." It's a thought.

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